900,000 Euro fine against notebooksbilliger.de AG
Unlawful video surveillance of employees and customers for a duration of at least two years.

The State Commissioner for Data Protection of Lower Saxony, Barbara Thiel, imposed the fine on the online mail order company because the company had monitored its employees with video cameras for a period of at least two years without a contractual basis. The cameras covered workplaces, sales areas, warehouses and common areas. Likewise, the video surveillance was carried out on a blanket basis and was neither limited to specific employees nor to a specific period of time, and the video recordings were often stored for 60 days and thus for much longer than required.

The defendant pleaded that the video surveillance served to protect and investigate criminal offences as well as to track the flow of goods in the warehouses. However, the authority nevertheless found that such blanket surveillance for an indefinite period of time was inadmissible and emphasised that the company should have first used milder methods to prevent criminal offences. Video surveillance for this purpose, which may then only be carried out for a limited period of time, is only permitted if there is reasonable suspicion against the person to be monitored. The alleged deterrent effect of the blanket surveillance carried out by the person in charge did not justify an unjustified and permanent encroachment on the personal rights of the employees.

Customers of the company were also recorded by the cameras, as some of them were aimed at seating areas in its sales rooms. Thiel emphasised that the video surveillance was not proportionate in these cases either, as the persons concerned, who usually spend longer in these areas (e.g. to take a closer look at equipment), have high interests worthy of protection. These interests outweigh the previously stated interests of the controller.

In response to the fine, the company adapted the video surveillance to legal requirements and provided the LfD Lower Saxony with corresponding evidence.

The judgement is not yet legally binding.

In a press release published on 8 January 2021, Notebooksbilliger.de criticised the fine as disproportionate and unlawful and announced in it that it would appeal against it. In an interview with the computer magazine c′t, company founder Arnd von Wedemeyer states that the penalty notice was already received in December and that the appeal has already been lodged. The company explains in its notice that video surveillance is used to track the flow of goods in the storage, sale and shipment of high-value IT products and that recordings are at best only examined retrospectively for indications. Furthermore, notebooksbilliger.de complains that during the three-year procedure, despite several invitations, no authority employee had looked at the cameras on site.

The company is legally represented by Hanno Timner of the law firm Morrison & Foerster and by defence lawyer Uwe Freyschmidt. The two lawyers had already won a significant reduction of the fine for 1&1 before the Bonn Regional Court. In addition to the accusation of disproportionality, Freyschmidt announced that he would also put other issues to the test in court. The supervisory authority did not establish a concrete violation by a management person at notebooksbilliger.de. The criminal lawyer is demanding clarification on this point in particular.

The online mail order company generated a total of 785 million euros in revenue in 2017, and 878 million euros in 2018. In 2017, 41.13 million euros were reported as profit in the balance sheet. In 2018, the balance sheet profit was 57 million euros. According to the company website, the turnover for 2019 is 900 million euros. This means that the fine amounts to 1.16 per cent of the previous year's turnover. In the top list of the online shops with the highest turnover in Germany, notebooksbilliger.de is in 4th place.

According to the balance sheet, a total of 335 people were employed in 2018, and according to the website, more than 800 people are employed as of 8 January 2021. According to the definition of the Federal Statistical Office, notebooksbilliger.de AG is one of the large companies, of which there are only 0.6 percent in Germany. In the press release, CEO Oliver Hellmold describes the company as a manageable medium-sized enterprise.